Tunisia: Feminist Fall?

Tunisia: Feminist Fall?

Nine months after the overthrow of the former president, Tunisia has voted in the first open and fair election in the region. In the final part of a three part article Kristine Goulding argues that if a 'feminist fall' does not come to fruition, it will be because the citizens of Tunisia have shown democratically that feminism is not consummate on their agenda.

This is the third part of a three part article. (Read parts one[2] and two[3].)

Structurally, Tunisia’s
transitional government led by interim president Fouad Mebazza, interim prime
minister Beji Caid el Sebsi, and minister of women's affairs Lilia Laabidi,
seems to be making a concerted effort to ensure that women’s equality is and remains
a key electoral concern. April’s gender parity law was just the beginning.

In September, Tunisia became the
first country in the region to withdraw all its specific reservations to CEDAW,
the international convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination
against women. Tunisia has long registered objections to specific clauses of
CEDAW on the grounds that they conflicted with Tunisian nationality and
personal status codes. Withdrawing the reservations opens the door to the
potential of an even more liberal family code, and will reverse a long-standing
tradition of hypocrisy – signing a convention to demonstrate the country’s
legitimacy and respectability but then excusing the government from some or all
of its obligations.

The government too has undertaken
a massive campaign to urge Tunisian women to vote. The “I Must Go There” slogan has been launched via radio and
Tunisian national TV channels to motivate women to vote on 23 October. “Our goal
is to make women aware of their voting duty,” said Lilia
Labidi[4]. “Development is not possible without democracy and excluding women
from the public sphere.” Labidi herself has undertaken a strenuous jet-setting
lifestyle to publicize the women of Tunisia, making stops at the UN General
Assembly in New York, the Human Rights Council in Geneva, and countless
high-level meetings throughout Europe, the US and the Middle East.

Sadly, the government’s ad campaign
and proud words come in response to a foreboding pragmatic development. The
High Independent Authority for the Elections (ISIE), the body charged
with registering Tunisians, establishing legitimate voter lists, and carrying
out free elections on 23 October, announced[5] that at the end of registration period in mid-August only 55 percent
of the estimated voting population had actually registered. While 45 percent of
those registered were women, observers were shocked that the numbers remained
so low, even after the registration period was extended. And even more
disturbing, less
than 5 percent[6] of the 1,600 lists entered by Tunisia’s
myriad political parties are headed by women. While women make up 50
percent of the total list, by and large they have been excluded from leadership
positions. Even the ISIE[7] itself fell prey to this trap: of the 16 members, just two are women
– although one woman has been elected as vice president.

Preliminary numbers following the elections appear to show better turnout results: according to many sources, more than nine in ten eligible Tunisians cast ballots between October 21st-23rd. "Among 4.1 million people registered, more than 90 percent have voted." Boubaker Ben Thabet, secretary general of the Independent High Authority for Elections in Tunis told reporters. Such turnout is utterly unprecedented, and was met with great acclaim throughout the country.

Yet troubling
patterns showing reluctance to include women candidates in the elections have been mirrored on the ground throughout Tunisia. A
qualitative study[8] undertaken by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in
Tunis, Sfax, Gafsa and Medenine, revealed significant opposition to April’s
gender parity decree. While both men and women consider women’s participation
important to Tunisia’s future, the majority find the quota too high. Many
participants pointed out that women have little experience in politics, and
that candidates should be elected based on merit rather than gender. Said one
young participant in Sfax, “When they [the transitional government] limit us
like this it is not effective. We need people … who can do the work regardless
of gender. What matters is competence.”

Identical
concerns were voiced during interviews[9] conducted throughout the country 2009 when Ben Ali still held power.
While Tunisians value women’s voices in political decision-making processes, it
is more important for most to have well-qualified candidates regardless of
their gender. In 2009, many saw quotas as a heavy-handed approach used by the
government to guide the results of the elections. The same is true in 2011.
This attitude reveals an incongruity between political parties and the demands
of the people. While all political parties (including al-Nahda) voted to
approve the gender parity ruling, the decision apparently did not reflect the
views of the population. Could this be seen as the beginning of another
generation of disconnected political sycophants?

The study’s
participants raise a valid concern regarding the credentials of female
participants, especially in rural interior areas. Rural districts, including
Kasserine, Sidi Bouzid, Kairouan and Silana were granted disproportionately
high numbers of seats in the National Constituent Assembly to compensate for
historical underrepresentation. At the same time, those districts have some of
the country’s highest rates of illiteracy, between 26-30 percent – a number
which is even higher among women, especially older women. In the interior
governorates, 36
percent[7] of all women are illiterate.

While literacy is
certainly not the only measure of political qualification, the statistics do
raise another dilemma. Attracting qualified and motivated female candidates
will be challenging enough in the urban coastal governorates; the process will
be even harder in the interior. Historically the majority of female politicians
have been drawn from the urban bases of Tunis, Sousse, Sfax and Ben Arous, and only
erratically have political training and empowerment workshops been made
available to rural women. Until present there has been no unified effort to
reach parochial populations. This trend raises doubts of the efficacy of the
new quotas: will the gender parity policy facilitate the election of
unqualified women, in the process undermining the goal of sustainable women’s
empowerment? Could the policy further entrench inequalities between the cities
and hinterland?

The clinching point to note is
that Islamism, while a potential threat to women’s rights, is not the only
threat. If a feminist fall does not come to fruition, it will not be because of
the failure of the interim government and its policies; it will be because the
people are not ready or willing. As under ex-president Ben Ali, the government
and the political elite remain ahead of the man – and woman – on the street in
conceptualizing women’s rights. The elections on 23 October will demonstrate
the extent to which women’s rights have become part of the national discourse –
and in the process, show who will have the last word, the politicians or the
people.

The elections and beyond

The elections have underscored a
curious tension in the women’s rights discourse: a conflict between a “thin”
notion of participation and gender equity focused on mere numerical
representation of women in politics, and a “thicker” notion of equality that
includes access to jobs, decent income, participation in decision making, and
bodily integrity. Universalised gender quotas and gender-equitable party lists
are examples of the former, but the latter, a more substantive type of change
which facilitates gender-egalitarian policy outcomes, is far more challenging –
and beyond the scope of the gender parity ruling. Substantive
gender-egalitarian change is about more than just numbers. Instigating change
from the top down is a start, but fostering an underlying ideological
transformation will require more than just quotas.

The greatest fear of the election is that a victorious Islamist party will prevent such
a societal transformation from occurring. The old adage that Islamism and
feminism are incompatible cannot be forgotten. But as is the case so often,
politics, politicians and the media have tended to frame the complex issue of
Islamism and gender in dichotomous terms: in the case of Tunisia, a history of
liberalism, women’s rights and secularism, threatened by the spectre of an
Islamic takeover. While the fault line between those who would like to see an
Islamist form of governance and those who wish the continuance of secularism
has divided the nascent democracy, religion cannot and should not be the only
question asked at the polls.

Viewing the Islamism/secularism
equation as “either/or” misses several important issues[10].
It neglects the history of the Tunisian state – Islamism is and always has been
a part of Tunisian society, and consequently Islamist parties are only reacting
to pressure from their electoral bases. These are the same people who dismiss
gender quotas as undemocratic and heavy-handed. It dismisses the dynamism of
political parties and the political process – nascent and established parties
themselves are not monolithic, and there is constant redefinition and debate
within and outside political organizations. Most of all, it overlooks the wider
stage on which these political trends are shifting with public opinion and
international events – the larger Arab Spring, the transformative power of
religious political movements and the ever-present spectre of the media.

As the dust of the elections starts to settle, it is clear that al-Nahda has claimed victory in Tunisia's landmark elections. Preliminary results indicate that the party has won the biggest share of votes, assuring it a strong say in future political processes. Party officials estimate that al-Nahda has taken at least 30 percent of the 217-seat National Constituent Assembly, and will therefore have the strongest voice in drafting the new constitution. Other estimates put the party's share from Sunday's vote closer to 50 percent. Official results are expected throughout the day today, but the overall outcome is clear: Islamists have won a huge victory in the first democratic election in Tunisia in half a century.

Yet no matter the outcome of the
election, and despite the trepidations of many observers, the wheels of change have already been set in motion; substantive
gender-egalitarian change has already begun. The past months have seen
political parties of all stripes catering to their female constituents,
courting them to become part of their lists – even outlier parties such as
al-Nahda. The multitudes of parties have included cadres of women in their
executive boards, and women across the political spectrum have stepped in front
of cameras to represent their parties. With unheard of speed, it has become
“normal” for women to be politicians. This mentality change cannot be reversed.
During the last months, women have claimed many privileges that otherwise would
have taken them years, and more and more women have expressed interest in the
political sphere. Hopefully this interest will persevere.

Tunisia’s election will stand as
an example to others in the region, both for its successes and its failures.
Al-Nahda's success could boost other Islamist parties in north Africa and the middle east, which raises alarm ( and hope) for many observers. Yet luckily, for all the reasons that Tunisia led the Arab Spring uprisings – a
strong sense of civic activism, a strong value of women’s rights, and a strong
separation of politics and religion – the country is ideally positioned to deal with the aftermath of an open and free election, regardless of the winners. While a smooth
transition is hardly guaranteed, and while the struggle for women’s rights is
still uphill, Tunisia’s path to reform appears to be leading in the right
direction.

This is the third part of a three part article. (Read parts one[2] and two[3].)

Kristine Goulding is a research analyst at the UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) working on Gender and Development. A former Fulbright scholar, she writes on gender-egalitarian policy changes, women's political participation and gender politics in North Africa and the Middle East.

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